Wrongheaded politics at San Diego City Hall

Bob Filner has left the building, but the liberal politics that he represented still haunt San Diego City Hall. The Democratic majority that controls the City Council showed in two key votes since Filner’s departure that it remains solidly in sync with a so-called “progressive” agenda. It may make for populist politics, but it is pushing the city dangerously along an anti-business path that threatens to tie San Diego to the state’s reputation as a lousy place to do business.

On Sept. 17, the council voted on a 5-4 party line vote to approve an update to the Barrio Logan community plan that included zoning changes that could mean the slow demise of many businesses and thousands of jobs tied to the shipbuilding and repair companies on the working waterfront adjacent to the barrio. The vote prompted worried industry officials to launch lightning-speed referendum drives that, if sufficient signatures are verified as expected, will force the council to rescind the plan and zoning changes or put them on the citywide ballot next June.

And last week the council voted, again 5-4, to approve a gigantic increase in the fee charged to commercial, industrial and retail developers to help fund low-cost housing in the city. Business leaders are said to be considering a legal challenge to the fee increase, as well as a referendum drive to block it.

Council votes like these send shock waves outside the city that San Diego is building an anti-business climate. It’s a reputation the city can ill afford, but one consultant with big-name clients based outside San Diego said some of them already “are asking whether they should invest” here. San Diego remains an attractive market, he said, but must compete with cities in other states that offer goodies such as free land and tax breaks to induce companies, rather than pushing them away with significant fee hikes.

These votes also place even more importance on the special election to replace the disgraced Filner as mayor, and on the campaigns next year for four of nine seats on council. Two of those seats are safely held by Democrats and two are held, perhaps less safely, by Republicans.

The first round of mayoral voting, just nine days away, is likely to propel Councilman Kevin Faulconer, a business-friendly Republican, into a runoff against Councilman David Alvarez, a liberal Democrat who made the motion to approve both the Barrio Logan plan and the affordable-housing fee, or Qualcomm executive Nathan Fletcher, whose positions on both issues were typically squishy.

The stakes could not be higher. California already consistently ranks at the bottom or near the bottom of the 50 states in terms of its business climate. San Diego cannot allow itself to follow in the state’s path.